Upon the third and last night there is a weirdly beautiful ceremony,
more touching than that of the Segaki, stranger than the Bon-odori--the
ceremony of farewell. All that the living may do to please the dead has
been done; the time allotted by the powers of the unseen worlds unto the
ghostly visitants is well nigh past, and their friends must send them
all back again.

Everything has been prepared for them. In each home small boats made of
barley straw closely woven have been freighted with supplies of choice
food, with tiny lanterns, and written messages of faith and love. Seldom
more than two feet in length are these boats; but the dead require
little room. And the frail craft are launched on canal, lake, sea, or
river--each with a miniature lantern glowing at the prow, and incense
burning at the stern. And if the night be fair, they voyage long. Down
all the creeks and rivers and canals the phantom fleets go glimmering to
the sea; and all the sea sparkles to the horizon with the lights of the
dead, and the sea wind is fragrant with incense.

But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch the
shoryobune, 'the boats of the blessed ghosts.'

4

It is so narrow, the Street of the Aged Men, that by stretching out
one's arms one can touch the figured sign-draperies before its tiny
shops on both sides at once. And these little ark-shaped houses really
seem toy-houses; that in which Akira lives is even smaller than the
rest, having no shop in it, and no miniature second story. It is all
closed up. Akira slides back the wooden amado which forms the door, and
then the paper-paned screens behind it; and the tiny structure, thus